


And Flowers in Her Hair

by KillerKueen



Series: Rumbelle Showdown 2017 [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10436085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerKueen/pseuds/KillerKueen
Summary: Mr. Gold has been taking lessons on flower arranging with Belle in the back of her father's shop for months now. Her patience is rather at an end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the RumbelleShowdown 2017 Chalk Dust
> 
> Round four prompts: What we don’t understand, Harmony, Forbidden kiss under mistletoe
> 
> This entry won!! I was so excited to find out, and so happy to have competed against such talented writers. This fandom is just the best. :D

The bell gave a jolly ring when Gold pushed open the door, and he quickly shut it behind him blocking out the wind and rain. The air inside Game of Thorns was sticky and pleasantly humid, if there were such a thing, and it was no hardship to slip out of his overcoat. He folded it carefully over the arm not holding his cane. He waited, eyes roving the counters and the cooler.

Nothing much changed in Storybrooke’s only flower shop: when the roses wilted, they were replaced with roses, the orchids with orchids. Even the mistletoe that hung over the door jam that led to the back was unchanging since it had first been put up around the end of November, though Gold was sure it was just plastic and not the real thing. There was something funny about that, it being a flower shop and all. It was almost as funny as it was charming, the silky green leaves and red berries proudly proclaiming Christmastime even though it was nearing the beginning of spring.

Movement below caught his eye, and he watched as as the curtain was moved aside to reveal Belle. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, wisps artfully framing her face, and he longed to sink his fingers into her curls, tilt her head back and kiss along her jaw, up to where it connected with her neck. He could just picture how her eyes would flutter closed, how her lips would open—would she gasp? Moan?

“Mr. Gold,” she said. “Right on time.”

He coughed, flicking his hair back from his face. Belle was far more likely to scream if he dared touch her in such a way. He knew that, and continuously fantasizing about it was doing her a disservice. He blamed the damned mistletoe.

“Belle,” he said in greeting.

“You are allowed to just come through,” Belle said. “You don’t have to wait there by the door as if you’re unwelcome.”

Gold shrugged, as he always did when she made the offer. “I would hate to intrude.” He walked across the sales floor, his cane making a soft tapping sound against the hardwood.

Her smile was fond, if a touch exasperated. “It’s hardly an intrusion.” Belle pulled back the curtain a little more, allowing him to follow her through. “I ordered some lovely flowers for today,” she said leading him to the work table, two stools already pulled out for them to sit.

It had all started last autumn. While Moe fumbled with the rent money, Gold mentioned how striking an arrangement Belle had put together was as she placed it carefully in the display window. Instead of taking the compliment like a normal person (or telling him to piss off, which was also normal), Belle had looked him right in the eye and offered to teach him how to make an arrangement himself.

He accepted. Why wouldn’t he? He had a garden full of roses that he hardly knew what to do with, after all, and there were worse ways to spend an afternoon than with someone as lovely as Belle showing him how best to stick them in a jar of water.

And then one lesson became two. Soon enough he was making time for a weekly appointment when their respective shops would close and Gold could sequester himself into the back of Game of Thorns and have Belle all to himself for an hour or two. If he managed to learn something about botany, all the better.

“Yes, these look quite lovely,” Gold said. Belle always chose the best flowers for them to work with. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with this one, though.” He prodded the flowers in question, noticing that the rounded clusters of the small, deep purple blooms would pair nicely with the white gardenias and yellow honeysuckle.

Belle hummed, pulling her stool close enough to his that he could feel the warmth of her arm against his as she picked up a pair of scissors.

“Those are heliotropes. Here,” she said, reaching for a stem with three clusters of the flowers. She held it up to his nose, eyebrows raised in expectation. “Well, go on,” she said when he did nothing more than stare at her. “Smell.”

Gold held out his hand, his fingers brushing the back of Belle’s as he steadied the flowers and leaned in. He took a deep breath, and he caught something reminiscent of vanilla, but that could just be the perfume Belle dapped on her wrists. He shivered at the thought of where else he might be able to find traces of it.

“That’s…lovely,” Gold managed.

Belle beamed. “They have a very distinct smell, heliotropes.”

“Yes,” he cleared his throat. “Very distinct.” Desperate to distract himself, he reached for the tall glass mason jar, pulling it towards them. “I see we’re going for a casual look today.”

“It’s such a gloomy day outside, I figured it was appropriate,” Belle said with a shrug. She clipped the end of the stem she still held. “Besides, I think it’ll look the best with the rest of your trinkets in that dusty shop of yours.”

“Aye, that it will.”

They soon fell into their routine—together they compared lengths and buds and decided which were best and which could be trimmed. They went slow. They talked about new acquisitions to Gold’s shop, or a particularly good book that Belle had just started.

“The honeysuckle doesn’t really fit,” Gold said when they were nearly finished and he could see the full effect. “Why didn’t you choose yellow roses?”

“Yellow roses?” Belle frowned.

“I recall you quite like roses,” he admitted. “And they’re the same color.”

“You know the ideal arrangement is a sort of harmony with the flowers, right?” she brushed a wayward curl from her face only to have it bounce back. “You have to ask yourself which is most important, the meaning of the flowers or how it looks?”

Gold looked back to the jar. Flower meaning wasn’t something that they’ve talked a whole lot about.

“Well, I know yellow roses mean friendship,” he murmured. “What do honeysuckle mean?”

“Happiness.”

“That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“Ah—no. No, it’s not. At least not to me. I—” Belle cleared her throat. She shrugged helplessly. “I mean, it should be. But it’s not.”

Gold tilted his head. Her cheeks were turning a rather fetching shade of red, but her eyes were steady as they met his.

“What do heliotrope mean?” he asked, voice low.

“Devotion.”

Gold swallowed thickly. “And gardenias?”

“Those mean a secret,” Belle said, and how did they get so close together? They were leaning in, sharing the same breath, their noses nearly touching.

“I almost added forget-me-nots, you know,” Belle said after a heartbeat.

“Lovely, delicate things. Why didn’t you?”

“They’re so similar to heliotropes, how the blooms group together. I didn’t want the flowers to overwhelm each other.”

“I find there’s nothing wrong with being overwhelmed sometimes,” he said. His mouth felt horribly dry.

“Are you overwhelmed right now, Mr. Gold?” she asked, her eyes tracking his tongue where it swiped across his bottom lip.

“Unbearably so.”

Belle sucked in a breath and that was all the warning he got before her lips were smashed to his.

In all his daydreams of kissing Belle, he had imagined sunlight and sugar; sweetness and light and warmth. The reality was sharper. It had teeth. With her fingers gripping the long strands of his hair, Belle kissed him like the only thing she was able to breathe was the very air from his lungs.

Finally they broke apart, panting, and Gold could think clearly again.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her head shaking back and forth, her blue eyes wide. “I didn’t—oh, I didn’t—”

“There’s no need to apologize,” he said, and he wondered if he looked as star-struck as he felt.

Belle’s hands slipped from his hair and slide down his shoulders, coming to his lapels. “So that was okay?”

“More than.”

Belle’s smile was luminescent. “My heart nearly stopped when you saw the mistletoe for the first time, after I hung it up. I was sure you’d take advantage.”

“I could never take advantage of you, Belle.”

A laugh bubbled from her chest. She clutched his jacket, pulling him closer. “I thought maybe you’d wait for Christmas, but that came and went and I couldn’t understand when you still didn’t kiss me.”

Gold groaned, his hands sinking in her hair, taking out the pins so he could run his fingers through her curls. “Because I’m a fool who doesn’t stand a chance with you.”

“None of that,” she murmured.

He tilted her head back. Belle closed her eyes, her mouth falling open. When he pressed his lips up the line of her jaw, when his mouth closed on the place her jaw met her neck, she didn’t gasp or moan.

She laughed—a delightful, breathy sound. "Gold," she said. "Gold."


End file.
